The Guardian on form (updated)

'On form', here, to be interpreted relative to the Guardian's recent political record. Yesterday it carried a leader arguing - though this is putting it generously - that Jenny Tonge should not have been dismissed from her party's frontbench or so sweepingly condemned for what she said. But the argument, if such it is, rests on the meaning of the word 'understanding' in this context, and the way in which it sometimes doesn't condone and sometimes does. The Guardian thinks she wasn't condoning; many others, including myself, think she was. (See also Natalie Solent.)

But it's very simple to say these things clearly (or if you've mis-spoken in haste, or off the cuff, to correct what you've said by a further statement; rather than expressing yourself as having no regrets, which is what Tonge did). One can say, for example, as I myself do say:

The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory represents a major historical injustice, and is a daily crime against the Palestinian people. The sufferings which Palestinians are having to endure - again daily - and the grievances and the hatreds that these cause are understandable. They are a stain upon the Israeli nation. And, the longer they go on, the more they threaten the region, and possibly beyond, with a terrible catastrophe. For the use of suicide bombing as a response to all this, however, I can have no understanding or sympathy - especially not as a parent or grandparent - since it kills and maims people at random, including children and infants, and is a form of mass murder outlawed for generations by all civilized codes of warfare and resistance.

The Guardian editorial in question does not itself speak in quite the same language as mine, but in wanting to exonerate Jenny Tonge it does make some effort to observe the necessary distinctions, as she did not. The more surprising is it that it does exonerate her, without offering anything of substance on why a sympathy that can go as far as hers - beyond the grievance and its cause, to the murderous acts they supposedly lead to (bypassing the strategic and political choices made on the way) - is to be accommodated. And the more disgraceful.

Well, the Guardian gets the readers it thereby deserves. A whole clutch of letters on the same page on the same day tells that story. There is one there, on the other hand, which will save me having to repeat myself for the nth time. It's from Michael Lewis:

Jenny Tonge has attempted to explain suicide bombing on the basis of the desperation of the Palestinian people. She is correct that the Palestinians are desperate, but wrong that this is the cause of suicide bombing. Suicide bombing emanates from the wicked, cynical manipulation by terrorist organisations of ordinary people. There are many desperate people on this planet and they don't resort to suicide bombing. Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela reached their objectives quite differently.

Clear as crystal, yet the point so widely ignored.

Compare this letter from Irene Bruegel, seemingly writing in the name of Jews for Justice for Palestinians:

Far from encouraging suicide bombing, Jenny Tonge was looking to the roots of the problem: the human rights abuses, daily humiliations and overwhelming frustrations she witnessed in the occupied territories... Rather than condemn her, we need to build support for the majority of Palestinians who decry terror and for the increasing numbers of Israelis who recognise that Israel's inhumane and illegal operations are the fundamental threat to their security.

The logic of the final statement here is faulty in that the things Irene says we need to do - and I leave aside one or two reservations I have about their formulation - can be done whether one condemns Jenny Tonge's words or not. I am one of the signatories of the JFJFP statement, but I wasn't aware that this committed me to supporting sentiments such as those expressed by Tonge. It's something I'll be taking steps to clarify.

(Updated at 2.50 PM) Two items in the same general area. First, Benny Morris in Haaretz responds to his critics:

The war being waged against us since September 2000 is three-dimensional: On one level, which is the one highlighted by Palestinian spokespersons, a struggle is being waged for liberation from Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; on the second level, the Palestinians - according to spokesmen for Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah militants - are waging a war to eradicate the Zionist state and to restore their "rights" over all of Palestine; on the third level, the Palestinians' struggle is part of the global struggle being waged by jihadist Islam against the "Western Satan," with Israel being a vulnerable extension of Western culture in our region.

The passage overlaps with the arguments of Michael Walzer which I've linked to before.

Second, this is a tragic story. Note the two-sided nature of this tragedy, created both by the effort to expel Adel Hussein and the threat to his life if he is expelled. (Hat tip: GH.)